Ham Bones: Marker Artifacts for the 1559 Luna Expedition Settlement at Pensacola Bay
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Ham Bones: Marker Artifacts for the 1559 Luna Expedition Settlement at Pensacola Bay (And, Why Were No Live Pigs Ever Sent?) By David B. Dodson March 2018 Abstract The Spanish financial documents related to the 1559 Luna Expedition delineate the amounts of various foodstuff shipped and the amounts paid the vendors and mule drovers for their deliveries to the Gulf port at Vera Cruz. While live pigs were a vital if not a “last resort” food source for the Soto expedition 20 years earlier, curiously the Luna records reveal that apparently no live pigs were ever sent to la Florida during that expedition— only cured or salted pork products, mainly slabs of bacon and hams. This article will discuss the prospects of pig bones from the hams1 as marker artifacts for the Luna Expedition and investigate why no live pigs were ever sent to the Luna colonists in la Florida. Salt-Pork on the Luna Expedition: The Evidence In analyzing the Spanish financial records concerning outfitting the Luna Expedition, it appears that the pork products provided for the initial sail (called the armada) to la Florida weighed over 21,000 pounds or 10½ tons. Entries indicate that these pork products were mainly slabs of bacon (Figure 1) and hind leg quarters (Figure 2), which I like to call “hams” for its simplicity. 1 While the legs of pigs have many more bones than just the large femur—tibia, fibia, etc.—it is the stout femur or “ham bone” that is more likely to have survived and be more diagnostic to zooarcheologists. 2 2 Figure 1. Slab of cured bacon, and a “slice” to the side. 3 Figure 1. Cured “hams” hanging in a butcher shop in Spain. (The longer the cure, the more the cost—just like good, aged red wine) Typically, slabs of bacons have no bones whereas the hams would have 4 main bones—part of the pelvis, the femur, and the tibia and fibia (Figure 3). 2 https://www.baconscouts.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/nolecheks-slab-bacon-HERO.jpg 3 http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/fb4db5258822495e92c775707c1af81d/serrano-ham-jamones-cured-preserved- pork-hanging-up-in-bar-grocery-cymmn6.jpg 3 4 Figure 2. View of a Spanish ham showing the meat cuts as well as the four main bones--the hip bone, the femur with its large distinctive ball ends, and the thinner tibia and fibia. (Of course, there are other smaller bones associated with the hind leg quarter as well as the hoof, itself, but for the succinctness of this discussion, their “smallness” will not be included in this pig bone discussion—just the big ones.) The financial records do not discern as to how many hams were sent versus slabs of bacon, so we cannot definitively ascertain the ham amount. But knowing the Spanish demand for pork meat, the lack of spoiling and safeness from parasites, ease for cutting and weighing out rations, and versatility of hams in preparing meals, one could hypothesize that the large leg of meat (hams) made up at least one half of the total amount of salt pork. With that mean--and each ham typically weighing an average of 30 pounds each--that would approximate to at least 300 hams containing 1,200 large bones. A critic could argue that since not all the foodstuffs were unloaded off the ships upon arrival at Santa Maria de Ochuse (Pensacola Bay) in August of 1559 that not all the pork products were ashore.5 But even if half of the pork was ashore that would still approximate that 150 hams were probably unloaded with the associated 600 bones. 4 http://3.bp.blogspot.com/- LjLXyTVI6hk/T2xdwrC589I/AAAAAAAAA_Q/dP4zBSnx494/s1600/Antonio+Mata_partes+del+jamon_ ham_parts.jpg 5 Herbert Ingram Priestley, The Luna Papers, I, 285, 303, 313, Testimony And Report Of Certain Soldiers, Ocoa, August 11, 1561, Florida State Historical Society, Deland, 1928. 4 On the subsequent four re-supply shipments to the Luna expedition, over 30,500 pounds or 15 tons of salt pork products were also shipped. One could again hypothesize that half were hams, which would then equate to 500 hams with 2,000 bones. Therefore, with the possibility of the total amount of these 4 distinct possible pig bones numbering in the thousands, they could serve as marker artifacts for the location of the Luna settlement site at Santa Maria de Ochuse. Indeed, the very thick or stout femur bone--measuring around 12 inches in length with distinctive ball ends--would definitely be hard to overlook or be misidentified (Figure 3). 6 Figure 3. A stout femur of a pig with its distinctive ball ends. Conversely, the long searched for Soto battle site known as Mabila on the Alabama River near the interior Luna settlement site of Santa Cruz de Nanipacana (October 1559-June 1561) would be indicated by the presence of many more different types of pig bones, especially the skulls, jaw bones and teeth from the once live pigs they slaughtered to augment their dietary needs. Faunal remains and human remains have been found in archeological sites in northwest Florida and south Alabama dating back hundreds and even thousands of years ago. The remains were found in a variety of soil types, therefore, the prospect of unearthing the marker ham bones dating to only some 450 years is very probable. 6 https://www.doggiesolutions.co.uk/images/P/ham-bone.jpg 5 Also, even if the Luna colonists boiled the pig bones to make a broth or fractured the leg bones for marrow extraction, the dense bones of the pigs’ femurs and hips would survive. Zooarcheologists are capable of identifying such bones as Old World ungulates or hoofed mammals. Further—and very importantly--the salt pork served as a “ready made” dietary supplement of salt (NaCl, sodium chloride), which is needed for all humans and animals survive, much less keep hydrated and endure the very hot and humid climate of la Florida. Conversely, the slaughtering of live pigs might provide the needed proteins for the colonists, but very little if no salt. Thus, casks of salt were always being sought and sent to the Luna Expedition by the viceroy—not just for seasoning food stuff—but for the health of the expedition. The importance of salt in la Florida is made paramount by a quote from the Soto Expedition: There was much want of salt, also, that sometimes, in many places, a sick man having nothing for his nourishment, and wasting away to bone, of some ail that elsewhere might have found a remedy, when sinking under pure debility he would say, “Now, if I had but a slice of meat, or only a few lumps of salt, I should not thus die.”7 Similarly, Luna Expedition participant Fray Domingo de la Anunciación wrote on August 1, 1560 from the chiefdom of Coosa in today’s northern Alabama: ….we people of this camp now find ourselves in extreme need of shoes—which we are now all without—and of salt, [chili] peppers, horseshoes, and other things without which one passes this life badly.8 Therefore, the importance of salt on the Luna Expedition will be explored and discussed in a future article; and there is little doubt that salt pork served many purposes towards the health of the colonists as well as the health of the expedition. Examples of the Spanish Financial Documents 7 Narratives of De Soto in the conquest of Florida, translated by Buckingham Smith, Palmetto Books, Gainesville, Florida, 1968, 55. 8 Priestley, I, 229, Fray Domingo De La Anunciación And Others To Luna, Coosa, August 1, 1560. 6 One example of a financial entry in the Spanish records, which concerns the outfitting of the initial armada of June, 1559 with pork products, reads as follows: Miguel Carrasco, drover, was paid 18 pesos 6 tomines of the said common gold that he was owed for the delivery of 60 portions of salt pork that he brought in 6½ loads that his servant, Pero Hernandez, delivered in the said port of San Jhoan de Ulua at an amount of 2½ pesos per load as it appears by warrant of the said Alcalde Mayor dated on the said day [of May 18, 1559] and his letter of payment before the notary (Childers, 1999). Some of the entries concerning the first through third re-supply shipments9 to Santa Maria de Ochuse read as follows: Item: The said Pedro de Yebra presented the account for 58 pesos 2 tomines of common gold that he gave and paid to Alonso de Ledesma, drover, for the contract for the transport of 198 portions of salt pork10 from Mexico City to the port of San Juan de Ulua which weighted 233 arrobas for the aid sent to the governor and soldiers that were in Florida in His Majesty’s ships, at a cost of 2½ pesos for each load11 as it appears by warrant of the said Bachiller Martinez dated 29 January 1560 ….(Childers, 1999). Item: The said Pedro de Yebra presented the account for 22 pesos 6 tomines of common gold that he gave and paid to Juan de Mesa, drover, for the contract for the transport of 54 arrobas of portions of salt pork12 and 55 arrobas of hams 13 55 arrobas of coarse cotton shirting and six bundles of serge a leather covered chest of thread and 2 barrels of gunpowder and 29 axes that he carried from Mexico City to the port of Veracruz for the aid sent to the governor and soldiers that were in Florida as it appears by warrant of the said Bachiller Martinez dated 7 February 1560…(Childers, 1999).